Tag Archives: Underwater

So technically we don’t call ours a “Polar Plunge” and it is different than typical polar plunges, however… if you think about it, it is a polar plunge. It is January. It is cold. The water is even cooler, well sort of… our water was around 50 degrees and the outside temperature recorded in at a high of 55˚F so technically, it was the same, but the outside is warmer than the water temperature. Anyway, every year we start off the new year with the New Year’s Day down at Beaver Lake; this year was no different. The bus loaded up at the dive shop and left around 7:30 or 8am headed to Beaver Lake bound and determined to have New Year’s Day divers. Don’t look at me, I didn’t dive. It’s cold! I’m a chicken, but we did have 10 divers. Woot Woot! Good for you guys. I’m proud of you, and maybe, someday I’ll be convinced to partake.

Our drives down are never boring, this one included. So our good friend and diver Doug Lord’s birthday is New Year’s Eve. I guess a group went to church and then after went out to celebrate Doug‘s birthday (or so I understood… I wasn’t there). Now if you know our good friend and diver Kim Brungard and/or Dan La Due, Dan likes to stash things in Kim‘s purse for her to find at a later date. Kim was bragging about how her purse walked away unscathed, until she dug through it and found this. Good job Dano!

Once we got to the lake, we immediately started setting up the pop ups and turned on heat so that everyone would be nice and warm. Then it was time to unload dive gear and start putting it together.

Meanwhile on the inside we were warming up food. You know you’re with divers when weights are used for things other than diving!

Rachele was in charge of bringing the Black Eyed Peas. Wonder why that’s a thing anyway…. If you know, please share with me, otherwise I’ll ask my friend Google…. waiting…. Okay since no one answered () I’ll tell you what my friend Google told me…

There are two popular explanations that are associated with the South during the Civil War.

The first: is associated with General William T. Sherman’s march of the Union Army to the Sea, during which they pillaged the Confederate’s food supplies. They left the peas and salted pork as they thought they were unfit to be eaten by humans. The southerner’s considered themselves lucky to be left with food supplies to get them through the brutal winter.

The second: the black-eyed pea is a symbol of emancipation for African Americans who had previously been enslaved. After the Civil War, they were officially free on New Year’s day.

So there you have it. Take it for what it’s worth!! You’re also supposed to put a dime in the Black eyed peas, but I don’t know why. Someone please help with that too!!!

Anyway, Rachele volunteered to bring the Black eyed peas, also called Hoppin’ Johns. I loved how she transported them… in a large drink jug. Very cleaver!!

Along with the Black Eyed Peas we had potato soup, Taco Soup, chips, cheese (all the fixin’s), and Cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. There were decorated sugar cookies as well as Chocolate Chip Cookies.

We used the burners to add extra heat while there weren’t pans on them.

And hot chocolate. You can’t go without a warm drink and hot chocolate was it. Fun information about this warmer… they flattened out the top so the water pot would sit on it and warm up/stay warm! very cleaver!

I mentioned we had 10 divers, one of which was our 10 year old, Calder La Due. He was finishing out his open water certification. Brave boy! And New Year’s Day, he was the first certification of 2017, congratulations Calder!

Then there was the Amish Diver’s Hat. It made an appearance on multiple heads. What can we say, it gets around. haha.

But once it was finished making its rounds, it needed a place to hang out while the owner went out for a chilling dive. As Diver Dan was getting dressed to go dive, he made the comment he wanted to kick the guy in the butt (or was it head??) who decided he needed to make a dive every month since getting certified in 2004, but he just can’t kick that high.

We weren’t the only brave soul’s out there though, nope, the Benton County Rescue Team was out making their yearly dive.

Who knew that when you got certified to scuba dive that you’d need help dressing yourself.

I might get “shot” for this picture, but this is Tiffany Hayworth to a T. She’s great! Hey I didn’t realize, Tiffany, T, oh dear I crack myself up… Anyway she was one of the 2 brave women who went diving, although Rachele had a leg up on Tiffany because Rachele dove in her dry suit. When Tiffany came up, she made the comment that she had been down at TenTeen feet, or that’s what we heard anyway. Instead what she said was Seventeen feet but her face was so frozen you couldn’t hardly hear her and she couldn’t form words correctly.

Diver Dog Pete was ready to go. There was no keeping him home anyway and he assumed his position up on the beach to be the Watch Dog.

And who knew that Champagne Glasses could taste so good? Maybe that’s a New Year’s Eve thing, but who could resist? We were ringing in the New Year so it was very fitting!

After everyone who wanted to dive, dove, it was time to congregate up on the shore and warm up and eat, because remember, if there is food, they will come!

And it wouldn’t be a dive gathering if you didn’t see Kim and my (aka the blogger) tongue… it’s just our thing. That’s a thing only a mother could love, not my mother, but a mother . My dad would say, “If I had a tongue like that, I wouldn’t want it in my mouth either.”

If you’re Pete, you don’t like the normal entrance, so you just make your own. Hey, he’s the beach watch dog, he gets to make his own rules!

And I should mention that Pete had really bad gas. At one point he was sitting next to me, farted, I stuck my nose in my shirt to mask the smell and it came through my shirt. They say a fart is the sharpest object on earth. Anyway… while it looks like he was covering his nose from that, he was actually just not sharing the seat with Grady. He wanted his own seat.

And that ladies and gentlemen was our New Year’s Day dive. Hope you had a Great New Year’s and bring on the 2017 Dive Season! Thanks to all who came out to chat and especially to our representing divers: Dan Hayworth, Tiffany Hayworth, Sonny Johnson, Calder La Due, Dan La Due, Doug Lord, Rachele Lord, Logan Montgomery, Chris Parrish, and Ryan Paul